Thread: Mom deported after 18 years

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Last Updated: 5:56 am | Saturday, March 11, 2006
Mom deported after 18 years
U.S. gets tougher on immigration violations
BY DAN HORN | ENQUIRER STAFF WRITER
Fatima Raziuddin called her husband and children from an airport Tuesday night to say goodbye.

After 18 years in the United States, she was being deported to Pakistan for violating a student visa in 1989 by working at a fast-food restaurant. She had lived quietly, but illegally, in West Chester Township for the past decade.

Raziuddin sobbed as she talked to her husband about all she was leaving: Her two teenage sons, friends and neighbors, the doctors who treated her cancer and the children she taught at the local mosque.

Her life in America was over.

"Everybody loves her," her husband, Razi Dinn, said a few days later. "We need her. We can't live without her."

They might have no choice.

Raziuddin can't apply to re-enter the country for 10 years, and Dinn, a U.S. citizen, is wary of moving his kids to Pakistan, a country they've visited only once.

As a native of India, which has poor relations with Pakistan, Dinn isn't sure he could even make such a move.

The family's dilemma frustrates Raziuddin's friends and family, prompting them to join the growing national debate over the fairness and effectiveness of U.S. immigration law.

Federal authorities have struggled, especially since the 9/11 attacks, to create a tougher but fair enforcement policy.

Some say Raziuddin's case shows how lax enforcement allows illegal immigrants to linger in the United States for years. Others see her as proof that the law is harsh and inflexible, even when deportation is a hardship on spouses and children.

No one keeps statistics on how often deportations result in broken families, but some lawyers and experts think that the numbers are rising. The United States now deports about 200,000 people a year - the highest number in at least a decade.

"These are not all criminals," Raziuddin's lawyer, Charleston C.K. Wang, said. "This lady is not a felon. She is a wife and mother."

'MY CHILDREN NEED ME'

Raziuddin fought hard to stay in the United States, pleading with administrators and judges for years. But the mistake she made in 1989 - working part-time at a Popeye's restaurant in Texas - caught up to her last month.

Authorities arrested and jailed her after she tried for the third time to apply for citizenship.

Raziuddin does not dispute the old visa violation or that she later broke a promise to voluntarily leave the country. She argued instead that the life she led in America should outweigh her failure to follow the rules so long ago.

"I have been a good person," Raziuddin said in a telephone interview before she was deported. "My children need me. I'm always there for them.

"I would do anything to live in this country."

Immigration officials say they have no choice but to enforce the rules. They say illegal immigrants, even those who lead otherwise exemplary lives, flout laws intended to protect American citizens.

"We all have sympathy on the individual level, but we have a remarkably broken system," said John Keeley, spokesman for the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington think tank that favors strict enforcement of immigration laws. "This highlights the fact that people are exploiting the system. We have someone here who pledged to return home and then ignored U.S. immigration law."

Raziuddin compounded her mistake when she failed to leave on her own in 1990. If she had done so, she could have reapplied for a visa in just six months and begun the process of becoming a U.S. citizen.

Instead, she stayed in Texas with her husband, dropped out of college and gave birth to her sons, Shabbir and Abbas.

"If she would have just voluntarily departed, she might have been able to come back in a matter of months," said Greg Palmore, a Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman. "When you don't do that, you become an absconder."

EMBRACING LIFE IN AMERICA

Raziuddin, who married Dinn in 1988, said she planned to leave after the birth of her second son in 1991, but she fell ill with thyroid cancer soon after he was born.

Her court records include hospital bills for treatment at various times from 1991 to 1997 at a hospital and cancer center at the University of Texas.

Raziuddin said she has been healthy since then but fears the possibility of a recurrence.

Dinn, who became a U.S. citizen in 1994, said his wife's illness left the family in financial trouble, making it difficult for her to leave the country. He said he and his wife were a team: She stayed home with the kids while he worked long hours as a restaurant manager.

"She gave me all my strength," Dinn said.

The family moved to Cincinnati in the mid-1990s after Dinn took a job with Frisch's. They bought a house in West Chester, and Raziuddin immediately embraced life as a suburban mom.

She signed up her sons for Boy Scouts, taught religion classes at the mosque, sold cosmetics door-to-door and began baby sitting for her neighbors.

"She's very kind and very giving," Barbara Reisen, a neighbor, said. "She's not affluent, but she was always giving someone gifts."

As she settled into life in West Chester, uncertainty about her immigration status hung over the family. She repeatedly tried to get citizenship and was denied every time because of the old violation.

By the late 1990s, deportation started to look like a very real possibility.

Her last attempt to get legal status ended last month when she went to Columbus to meet with an immigration official. She was arrested and sent to a jail in northern Ohio.

FORCED TO LEAVE

Despite the distance, Raziuddin did her best to stay involved in her sons' lives. During a call home two weeks ago, she talked to Shabbir, 16, and Abbas, 14, about their school work, the Boy Scouts and how they were eating.

"It's hard," Shabbir said after hanging up the phone. "It's just weird not having my mom here. We rely on her for everything."

Dinn nodded as his son spoke. He said his hours at the restaurant are unpredictable and often keep him out of the house at odd hours. He never worried before because his wife was always there.

Now, he doesn't know what he'll do.

Raziuddin's lawyer made a last-ditch try to keep her in the country a few weeks ago when he requested asylum for her. He said she might be harmed if she returns to Pakistan because she is a Shiite Muslim, while her husband is a member of the rival Sunni sect.

"I don't know what will happen in Pakistan," Raziuddin said two weeks ago. "I'm afraid to go to that country."

Her asylum request failed. A few days later, immigration officials took her to the airport, allowed her a phone call and put her on a plane to Pakistan.

Raziuddin cried into the phone when she asked her husband to pack some of her belongings - clothes, shoes, a family photo - and send them to her sister in Pakistan. She planned to live with her, at least for a while.

After hanging up, Dinn struggled to choose the right things. Soon, he realized nothing he could send would be enough.

"It's just too much," he said. "If it was the house that was destroyed, I can rebuild it. But this ..."

His voice trailed off.

"I'm without a wife," Dinn said. "My kids are without a mom."

E-mail dhorn@enquirer.com

QUOTE:
Raziuddin compounded her mistake when she failed to leave on her own in 1990. If she had done so, she could have reapplied for a visa in just six months and begun the process of becoming a U.S. citizen.

Instead, she stayed in Texas with her husband, dropped out of college and gave birth to her sons, Shabbir and Abbas.

"If she would have just voluntarily departed, she might have been able to come back in a matter of months," said Greg Palmore, a Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman. "When you don't do that, you become an absconder."
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I dont feel any sympathy for her because she didnt follow the rules. Her own stupidity put her in that position. And on top of that, she had 2 kids who she says "need her". Why dont her kids just fly back with her?
Again, another Boo-Hoo , Poor-Me Story.

Every case should be examined on a case by case basis. Obviously she has kids who are U.S. citizens and a husband who presumably is one too. She should have gotten a good lawyer.